How to control the lighting of your Logitech peripherals

Nearly every gaming peripheral is equipped with RGB lighting, and Logitech’s G gaming brand is no different. Last year, the company redesigned its Logitech Control Center (LCC) app, which allows you to fully control its gaming equipment, and it gave the app a new name in the process: the Logitech G Hub.

If you are a fan of RGB lighting, then here’s how to control the LED technology, which Logitech calls LightSync, in your peripherals. This guide also covers how to apply color presets that aren’t distracting, how to create your own custom lighting configurations, and how to sync all of your peripherals to the same lighting scheme. If you’re not a fan of RGB lighting, then I’ll also walk you through how to shut everything off.

After all, not all of us want strobing lights on our keyboards when we’re working.

What you’ll need

How to get started

The very first step in controlling your LightSync lighting requires you to download the Logitech G Hub for Mac or Windows PCs. The G Hub is Logitech’s official hardware management application for its peripherals. I’d recommend keeping G Hub pinned to your Windows task bar or macOS dock so you can have quicker access.

Once you install the G Hub, you’ll come across a few prompts that refer to changelogs or a guided tour. You can skip these if you want to get straight to the customization process.

Logitech’s G peripherals — the G stands for “gaming” — vary in terms of the variety of effects and detail. In general, they rank in this order (most to least options): keyboards, mice, speakers, headsets, and genre-specific controllers (wheels, joysticks, etc.). For demonstration purposes, I’ll be testing some LightSync effects with a Logitech G513 keyboard, which has per-key RGB lighting and can display a wide range of colors and effects.

Change your light presets

Using your LightSync-compatible Logitech keyboard, select your keyboard from the main app screen, then make sure you’ve selected the LightSync tab, which you can click on the top left sidebar.

Within that tab, you can turn off the backlight completely, use the Freestyle mode to paint over specific keys or areas with your cursor, or select Animations for some intriguing (if distracting) light shows. To control keyboard brightness on the G513, you’ll have to use the physical Fn + F7 keys to toggle between off and four different brightness settings.

From the Presets “Effects” drop-down menu, you can select any one of the listed effects to see what they do. I’d suggest you play around with the presets to find out which you like most (and which could give possibly you a headache).

If you’d like to sync your lighting preset across your other Logitech G devices, just select the “Sync Lighting Options” button underneath the image of your peripheral.

Create your own lighting presets

With a bit of experimenting, you can create your own custom LightSync effects. The following instructions outline some of the basic G Hub Freestyle controls to give you a better idea of what they do and how you can use them to create custom effects.

From the “LightSync” tab, select “Freestyle.” You’ll see options in the sidebar that allow you to use the “Color Brush” to digitally paint over specific keys, “Quick Color” options that automatically highlight the WASD keys, number key row, function key row, modifier keys, and the arrow keys. You can also select and save different effects by clicking and using the “Effect” drop-down menu.

If you want an animated LightSync effect, navigate to and click on the “Animations” tab. From here, you’ll see an “Effect” drop-down that includes several preset effects. A few examples include: “Contrastic” for alternating colors between zones; “Verticool,” which blends warm and cold colors vertically; and “Ocean Wave,” which uses blue and brown / white keys to initiate tides crashing on a sandy beach.

You can also control the cycle process by clicking on the “Cycle” drop-down and selecting “Reverse Cycle,” “Cycle,” “Bounce,” or “Random.” A speed slider sitting right below the keyboard visual on the app allows you to control the speed of the given effect in milliseconds.

There’s a lot of room for customization here, even though it may seem daunting at first. Play around with the options so you can get comfortable creating your own effects later on.

Creating a static effect, pt. 1.

Creating a static effect, pt. 2.

Create your own light presets

Using the G513 keyboard, I’m going to show you how I created my own simple effect that highlights some of the keys I use in-game. Let’s say that we don’t want to start off with an animated keyboard effect. Click on “Freestyle” instead of “Animations” for a static effect.

Next, use “Color Brush” to select a color from the color picker; you can also enter your own HTML hex color code. In this example, I’ve chosen a dark blue, and I will then click on the “Fill A Group” button, allowing me to select a group of keys instead of manually “painting” each one. In this case, I’ve selected the “WASD” keys, which are usually reserved for character movement. You can try to do the same, or select your own color and group of keys.

You should see the changes reflected in real time. There’s no need to save your preset; as long as you have an effect selected from the “Effect” drop-down and keep the LightSync tab on the “FreeStyle” option, it’ll stay intact.

What if you wanted to create an animated LightSync effect instead? Just select the “Animations” tab to get started. Select one of the preset effects from the “Effect” drop-down. For this how-to, I’m picking “Contrastic” because of its slow but satisfying juxtaposition of colors and preset frames that covers most of the G513’s keys.

This next part is a bit tricky because it’s easy to miss the button. Instead of clicking the “Contrastic” effect, move your cursor to the right of the effect’s name. Now click on the small window icon to display a pop-up that allows you to control the animated effect.

For my version of “Contrastic,” I’m going to select the first frame from the slider, seen underneath the live visual representation of the G513 keyboard. Frames in the “Contrastic” effect include different groups of colors that appear as the animation is displayed on a loop. For this demonstration, I’m only editing the first couple of frames, so I’ve selected the first frame seen in the slider.

Looking at the left sidebar, I’m going to select and automatically paint 85 of the G513’s keys in hot pink. Afterward, I’m going to select a sky blue for 47 keys, followed by a deep purple for the remainder.

I’d also like to tweak the speed of the animation, so I’m moving the “Default Speed” slider to the left, so it will last only 480 milliseconds. Also, I’d like to keep the “Cycle” method, so I left it at its default setting within the drop-down.

Now that I’m finished painting the keys, I click on the blue “Save” button. Again, as long as the “Animations” and “Contrastic” options are selected, my G513 keyboard will continue to display my custom effect.

Sharing custom LightSync profiles with the G Hub Community

If you want, you could also share your custom LightSync profiles with the Logitech G Hub Community, per approval via email. To start, select the small share button, immediately right of the effect’s name in the “Animations” tab.

Once the sharing pop-up appears, you can set a custom name for your effect, add tags, and add a description. Next, hit the blue “Publish” button at the bottom of the window. (Make sure you sign into your Logitech account since you have to submit the effect for review before it’s shared.) Afterward, a pop-up will alert you that Logitech will reach out via email if your effect was approved for showcasing in the G Hub Community.

While you wait for your submission to be reviewed, you can check out other users’ G Hub profiles. To do so, start from the G Hub’s main screen (you can always get there by clicking the white “G” logo in the upper left corner). Next, click on the “Gaming Profiles” box near the bottom of the window. From here, you can search for, browse, and download effects for different Logitech G peripherals.

Congrats! Now you should be able to control your LightSync lighting for all of your Logitech G peripherals, create custom effects, submit them for review, and download other user’s profiles uploaded to the G Hub Community.

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